The 20 Graphic Novels You Should Read (After 'Watchmen')

They finally made a movie out of Watchmen, God bless 'em. Perhaps you've heard about it. Maybe you've also heard that before it was un film de Zack Snyder, Watchmen was a comic book, one that, despite being made of humble ink and staples and panels and word balloons, represented as giant a leap for its medium as Citizen Kane or Easy Rider did for theirs, and though it didn't put an end to dumb comics any more than those films put an end to dumb movies, it established a climate in which it was possible to do something grownup, to aim over the heads of the guys in the Cheetosdusted Punisher Tshirts once in a while. But if we can add one thing to the conventional wisdom about comics, it's this: Those giant leaps may not happen every day, but every week a whole crapload of new comics hits the shelves (every Wednesday, to be specific—between that and Lost it's basically the Nerd Sabbath). And while they're not all gems, plenty of them are moving the ball forward, boldly, in terms of what kinds of stories the medium can tell. If you used to read comics but drifted away, there's never been a better time to drift back; if you've never read them, there's never been a better time to start. You can't go wrong with the books in this slideshow. They're risky, inventive, boundarypushing—and (we promise) you can appreciate all of 'em whether or not you have fortyfive tangled years of XMen backstory committed to memory. And if you do have a backstory question, try the guy in the Punisher shirt. He's there every Wednesday. So are we. Click the slideshow link to find out why.